


Silent Proof

by pukajen



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 16:20:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pukajen/pseuds/pukajen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder had long ago lost count of the number of times he had watched Scully sleep. It wasn’t that he couldn’t go back to each individual time and come up with a tally should he so desire; it was more that each time was its own entity, part of a particular moment, and thus would have to be qualified in its own way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silent Proof

Mulder had long ago lost count of the number of times he had watched Scully sleep. It wasn’t that he couldn’t go back to each individual time and come up with a tally should he so desire; it was more that each time was its own entity, part of a particular moment, and thus would have to be qualified in its own way.

Also, he thought it might be just a bit creepy to keep a running total for no other reason than that the number would by now be well towards the triple digits. Between planes, stakeouts, and long car rides they grabbed sleep when and where they could. Often one slept while the other kept watch or worked. Or, in his case, claimed to work so that he could quietly observe her.

Times like now were better, in the quiet of night in an anonymous room when she was on the bed, work spread out around her, having drifted off into a doze either from exhaustion or sheer mind-numbing boredom from the dry case studies they were reading.

Theoretically, buried somewhere inside three thousand, nine hundred and forty two pages, was the reason that all the water in Medicine Lake, Montana, glowed green. Well, phosphoresced at any rate, even after it had been treated and deemed safe for drinking. As far as anyone could tell, there didn’t seem to be any adverse side effects; it was just odd.

The case first caught Mulder’s attention when he was procrastinating writing reports he owed both Skinner and accounting. While trolling the internet for anything unusual, he had stumbled onto a forum that compared notes on the strange glowing residents of Medicine Lake, Montana, population 225.

Wild theories abounded from some hidden government site doing tests with who knew what glowing results or byproducts, to an alien virus being tested out on a small, isolated community before being released globally, to a weird hippy commune with fantastic weed. 

It turned out to be a bit of all three, but none of the components were actually that interesting. The only reason that the government research was not more widely known was because the mountain town was isolated and very few people came and went. The community was, in fact, an isolationist, tree-hugging, love mother Earth, save the whales and spotted owl type commune, purportedly weed-free – something Mulder highly doubted – and none of them owned a cell phone, let alone a computer with any way to connect to the world wide web. 

And, as it happened, a meteor had in fact crashed about twenty miles up in the mountains some time during the winter. Whatever type of innocuous alien DNA it carried seemed to make the silt in the ponds and lake glow when the ambient temperature got above fifty.

Nothing threatening or dangerous. 

Or, at least as far as Mulder could tell from the never-ending reports compiled by various EPA, CDC, Department of Forestsry, and a half-dozen other governmental agencies, on both a federal and state level.

He was no slouch in the science department, especially considering his major was considered one of the more theoretical-based soft science fields. Not sure why psychology was considered a soft science, since Theoretical was actually part of the title for Theoretical Astrophysics, yet that was a hard science.

A subject he was sure was just a boring a his current reading material. Material he was certain had replaced something vital in his brain, like the quickest way to reload his gun, the best way to hide his browser history at work, or the phone numbers of pizza places that delivered after midnight. 

Though at least he had managed to stay conscious. 

Refocusing back on Scully, Mulder checked just to be sure; she was still sleeping propped up against the headboard with the two skinny pillows, her head leaning at an awkward angle on her left shoulder. There was no way she was comfortable; hopefully, she would be waking up soon. If she didn't he was going to be faced with the dilemma of either waking her up himself or letting her sleep as she was. 

It wasn't that he didn't want her spending the night in his bed – he did, so much he ached for it, in more than just a physical sense most nights, waking up and having his pillow infused with her scent, having her familiar, yet eminently mysterious body pressed up against his, though in his imaginings, more than just her blazer and shoes had been discarded when she was on his bed – it was that she was hard to wake at times, especially right after the resolution of a case. She was more pliant then, her guard dropping to nearly non-existent around him, and it took all of his impressive self-control – yes, he did have it, in fucking buckets when it came to Scully – not to give in and just slide onto the bed next to her. To find out if those semi-coherent requests she sometimes mumbled were things she really wanted. To learn the taste of her from more than just an aborted kiss months old. To flood himself in sensation until all he knew was her and all she knew was him.

There weren't a lot of things in this world Mulder considered certainties, but the need for Scully by his side, covering his back, taking point, was one of them. He knew all too well what it was like to be without her, and that thought inspired immense terror. It was more than enough to hold them in some sort of indefinite limbo, somewhere between friends and lovers yet not quite either. 

Letting her stay in his bed tonight would quiet the desire that raged inside him to be with her; to claim her and have her claim him; to watch over her, cataloging her soft sighs, the play of light over her pale skin and vibrant hair as the sun rose, memorizing the way she looked when waking and seeing him first thing.

But she would be sore and stiff the next morning if he didn't move her soon, and Mulder knew how much she hated sleeping in her clothes. 

Still, he took his time, keeping more of an eye on his partner than on what he was doing: tidying up the files spread over the desk and onto the floor back into their folders, turning off his laptop, then going over to the bed and gathering the files that Scully had been looking over. He randomly grabbed papers and shoved them together as quietly as he could, the whole endeavor would have been far more successful if he had actually taken the time to look at what he was doing rather than letting his gaze run over the form of his sleeping partner. 

Her shirt, more fitted these days than at the start of their partnership – and he quietly thanked any and all gods and/or higher beings that were responsible for that change – gapped just a little bit where the material stretched taut across her breasts, and Mulder fought with himself not to stare at the black lace he could see peeking through. 

In the end, it wasn't that much of an epic war, though it was a hell of a struggle, and his eyes stayed resolutely away from certain areas of her body. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to look – fuck, he knew he did – it was that he wanted to be permitted to look, rather than stealing furtive glances. 

When there were no more papers to file away, when he knew he couldn’t make his time stretch any longer, Mulder sat on the bed next to Scully’s left hip, facing her. Several nasty knee-jerk reactions in the past had taught him not loom over her when he tried to wake her. 

“Scully,” he called softly, the index finger of his left hand tapping the top of her left hand where it lay on the blue and teal comforter.

She didn’t move, and for ten long heartbeats he just watched her sleep; dozens of different scenarios played out in his brain about princesses and sleeping beauties and kisses that woke them.

Shaking off the odd trip to fairyland, Mulder stroked his finger down the soft skin of the back of her hand several times, relishing the feel of it. He studied the contrast between her small, pale hand and his darker, larger one. His fingers were nearly twice as big as hers and that led to thoughts of other differences; he felt his cock stir inside his trousers. Letting out a long sigh, he tapped her wrist just below the ulna and called her name again.

This time, her eyes opened, only they weren’t the hazily unfocused eyes she’d given him countless times before. No, this time they were alert and filled with knowledge. Twin urges tangled in him, one to back way the fuck off, leave the room – even if it was his – and never speak of this moment again, and the other to loom over her, get her to explain exactly what she was thinking.

“Playing possum?” Mulder asked, heart kicking up as he wondered if her eyes had been open at any point while his own had been making a slow perusal of her body.


End file.
